Should Obama Have Played In Kentucky?

May 20, 2008

Obviously, he never had a real shot of winning. But, if you go by pure demographics, he certainly should have come a lot closer than he did. Obama lost college grads by a whopping 56-40 margin, for example, a group he normally carries.

The regression model over at FiveThirtyEight projected a 19-point, 95,000 Clinton win. Granted, even Poblano (architect of said model) thought it would be more like 25. But there's no reason, other than his having written off the state, that it should have been 35 points and almost 250,000 votes.

On the other hand, this could all look pretty trivial once those Oregon results roll in later tonight.